


Jewel Street Kitchens

by classikewl



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, D:, F/F, F/M, M/M, Prostitution, bordello, pre-Path of Radience, sad oscar, tags added as story grows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 11:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classikewl/pseuds/classikewl
Summary: Sometimes Oscar can still smell his father's tobacco.He'll be scrubbing crocks in the dining room, or staring at the ceiling in a curtained salon, and the scent of cinnamon and applewood will take him away. He'll see his brothers play in the river reeds, he'll see papa's face the way it was before the sickness took all his color. Oscar will forget where he is...even what he is.It's the worst when he has to serve a soldier.





	Jewel Street Kitchens

**Author's Note:**

> finally writing in the FE fandom, I hope you all enjoy!

The dawn sky was dismal.

Grey and heavy in the way of waiting rain, a smell of the same in the air. A depressing musk that drifted with the scents of the backyard cagery as Oscar fought past the quails and pheasants for their spotted eggs. He could hear the old couple that lived in the attic of the next-door winery already complaining about what the weather would do to Madame Jorgie’s knees, and how the gutters would back up for a week if Melior saw as much rain as it had on the fifth of Simont, four years past.

Rain was good for business, not that Oscar was quite sure why. Patrons would come from every corner of Melior with their soaked overcoats and sodden hoods, from the docks along the river Ravenway to the stone-slab streets in the smithy quarter. Some already full of wine, others ready to be, they’d all at once stomp up the porch in muddied boots and clog the entranceway to the point that the hostess would prop open the front doors with potted flowers as patrons flooded the cloakroom and gallery.

The lanterns wouldn’t go out until three bells past midnight on days like that, though Oscar knew they’d be lit for far longer tonight.

Thunder rumbled away east, almost quiet enough to be lost under the clucking murmur of the quails. One scrambled across Oscar’s hand and left another red line as he snatched two eggs from a nest of cloth scraps and brown grass. He bled, but it was difficult to be annoyed when Oscar was sure he wouldn’t have to work the floor that day.

Sort of sure. Almost sure.

As sure as one could ever be at Jewel Street Kitchens.

\-----

By ninth bell Oscar had the cagery swept and the cold room arranged. His left shoulder still ached from his last appointment the day before, but the morning orders were finally all taken care of. Well, no, he was still waiting on the girl from the butcher. She never liked to pay much mind to the bells, even though it was Oscar’s hide that would see a switch if the lunch meats weren’t ready and waiting come noon. It’d be the easiest thing to jog across the way and take the order himself, but that meant taking a trip upstairs for permission.

Oscar eyed the staircase for a long moment, chewing on the inside of his lip. It was never a good idea to bother the master this early in the day.

He turned away when footsteps echoed in the hall, and quickly wet a rag to wipe down the bar.

“Filth everywhere,” the overseer hissed as he entered the dining room. His shirt sleeves were rolled and his collar was damp despite the early hour. Adrian was at his heels, as ever, along with half a dozen of the taskers. Oscar didn’t look up from his work to see exactly who. Didn’t much matter either way. “The soldiers bare hours away, and this entire floor no better than a sty-.”

“We’ll have the scrubs in directly,” Adrian assured, with that cheerful lilt to his voice that never sounded as false as Oscar was sure it was. “Nothing a wash and shine won’t take care of.” There was nothing that Adrian didn’t think a wash and shine could set to rights. Be it floors or dishes or beorc.

The overseer muttered something under his breath and then slapped a hand down on the bar top. _“Well?”_

Oscar didn’t flinch, but his fingers tightened against the rag. “Morning sir,” he murmured, quiet enough to be thought demure but not so much that he could be scolded for shyness. “The usual?”

“Not today, you _fool,”_ the overseer snapped, slapping the bar again. Oscar did flinch this time, but covered it by rubbing at a stain that wasn’t really there. “Or are the fowl likely to lay again by supper time?”

“No sir,” Oscar said, still demure. Still quiet. He wiped away the damp mark left by the overseer’s hand and kept his eyes low, hidden by his bangs. “Toast and jam then?”

The taskers complained, but Adrian shooed them away to a table. “Fine, but be quick about it. You should already be downstairs as it is.”

Downstairs?

“But-, but what about the soldiers?” Oscar asked, a little desperate as he lifted his head. His stomach began to twist. Sour and tight. He still had marks from the day before, still hadn’t even been allowed a proper wash yet. “They’re coming home tonight.”

One of Adrian’s eyebrows went high, something expectant in his pointed face, “And we’ll need every hand.”

“Every. Single. Hand,” the overseer growled, wagging a warning finger in Oscar’s paling face. “Be a goddessdamned disgrace if we don’t fill more than eighty cards by morning. And no less than three of those best be your own.”

Three cards _tonight?_

That-, that was more than he did in half a week, more than what even Alexis did in two days! They couldn’t just-, it wasn’t-, Oscar’d been waiting for this day for the last _fortnight,_ since he’d first heard rumor of the march ending. How could they think to keep him on the floor tonight? Who would cook? Who would be able to keep up with the orders? Who else knew how to make even half of what the menu offered?

“They-, the soldiers will be hungry,” Oscar insisted when the overseer made to turn away. He tried to keep himself demure, to still be docile. As docile as he could hope to be right now. It was one thing to be bruised by patrons, but another entirely to carry the overseer’s displeasure. “Th-they won’t want to stay if there’s nothing decent to eat.”

One of the taskers whistled from their table. “Little jade must think he’s something special!”

“Bet even the king doesn’t dine so fine,” another called, a tall woman that always volunteered to break in the new stock.

Adrian sighed as the taskers all laughed, but the overseer just stared at Oscar with his pebble grey eyes and drummed his damp fingers on the bar top. “…He has a point.”

“He thinks he has a point,” Adrian sighed. “Ruth can man the grill just the same.”

“Ruth makes slop not fit for swine,” the overseer muttered, still eyeing Oscar like a virgin one more whimper from being slapped. “Though she’s not worth much downstairs either.”

The bar was high enough that no one saw how Oscar’s hands twisted in the rag when he dropped his arms. His mouth had gone dry and his shoulder stiffened worse than it had since waking. “I’ll handle lunch and supper, all myself,” he tried, even though he knew better than to push. Adrian wanted him on the floor tonight, and Adrian generally got what he wanted. Things tended to go badly for Oscar when he didn’t. “Ruth can’t even reach the top shelf wine.”

The overseer lifted his lip the way he always did when thinking about the ledger, “Lose a twelfth of our profits right there.”

“Toast and jam,” Adrian reminded, rapping the bar with his freckled knuckles. He swept the overseer away towards the taskers with the sort of mindlessly cheerful smile seen sewn on dolls. “We might have you up to deal with the dinner rush…but you’ll be back downstairs right after.”

\-----

The lower floor of Jewel Street Kitchens never smelled the way it should, of over-dabbed perfumes and stagnant tubs of bath water that were refilled only twice a week. Especially so today, when the scrubs had been at every bit of the carpet and walls. The fabrics had already been taken out and beaten the day before, and every pillow in the salons had a fresh case. Even the brass doorknobs to each room had been shined so much that they gleamed like copper in the lantern light. There were no scrubs left but taskers were scattered throughout, handling furniture and preparing the last remnants of the new stock and scolding those foolish enough to complain at a rough touch.

Oscar was put to work the moment he was sighted coming down the stairs. He cleaned and greased the tools in the stage room and moved all the linen to the basement so the closet could be fit with a curtain and couch. The braziers yet needed to be filled, especially so with the coming rain, and the cold room hadn't been stocked for the patrons in the sitting room. The Clover twins begged him for help making their plaits the same size and asked him to shoo the cats upstairs before the taskers could start kicking at them. Gretchel made him tidy all the cobwebs that the scrubs hadn’t been able to reach in the reception hall, and sent him into each salon to do the same with a broom.

Some were already in use, but no one ever gave much thought to privacy downstairs.

“Ollie!” one of the new girls called as he entered the plump comfort of the last salon in the east hall. He couldn’t remember her name, but she was new only in that she’d been at Jewel Street Kitchens for a less than a month. She never seemed to mind being made ready by the taskers, even though Oscar always felt his chest go tight whenever they came near. “Are you with me today?”

“I’m…not sure,” Oscar murmured, careful to keep his eyes on the cobwebs. “Are we doubling up?”

She giggled, upside down on the only mattress in this hall that was fully stuffed. “Course! Don’t you know? The soldiers-.”

“Mm hmm,” he hummed, sweeping the corners of the ceiling as quickly as he could. “Back tonight, I heard.”

“Randy here said that every single one of them went off a-marching,” she sing-songed as Oscar crossed to the other side. “All but the-, oh, what are they called again, Randy love?”

“Royal Guard,” the tasker between her legs grunted. “Why you not dressed yet, jade?”

Oscar swallowed a little thickly and brushed harder at a stubborn bit of dust and cobs, “Was just sent downstairs, sir.”

The tasker grunted again and gave him a gruff order to get ready for a stretch, but Oscar managed to slip away when the new girl giggled something slanderous and earned herself a scolding.

Most of the new stock were still making a fuss when he got back to the sitting room. Scattered cries, sharp words from the taskers, the quiet jeers of those that had been servers at the Kitchens for years. It was a cruelty that Oscar couldn't understand, one he didn’t like to be around. He still remembered too much of his first night on the floor; flinching from taskers and patrons alike, feeling as if he would burn apart from the inside out, wondering if he could possibly take even _one touch more-._

That-, no, that was years ago. That was a different Oscar. A more foolish Oscar. One that still flushed at a joke too crude and dreamed about a future where a thousand hands not his own didn’t paw at him night and day. 

Try as he might, Oscar didn’t get back to the stage room unnoticed. The weekday foreman saw his scratched hands from the morning chores and the dust in his hair from the cobwebs, and cussed him out as a lazy loitersack. She pinched his throat, up by the hairline where a patron wouldn’t notice the blemish, before sending him away to be washed in cold water that had been spelled to smell like lavender. One of her aids scrubbed at his thighs and feet until he was sure he would bleed, and dressed him in a belted tunic that was almost sheer. It ended above his knees and split at the hip. He wasn’t allowed any leggings, no matter how politely he asked.

“Shush,” the aide said with a swat when Oscar opened his mouth, though he hadn’t intended to ask again. “You know there won’t be any time for redressing tonight.”

Most everyone downstairs looked the same, clothed in thin robes and shawls that would come apart with the pull of a cord. The favorites wore the best jewelry there was to be had, loops that could have been true gold and rings set with a dozen stones that flashed in the light. Oscar held still as a dull bronze stud was forced through each ear, and held his breath the way he knew he shouldn’t when a tasker came over to make him ready.

It was one he didn’t often see, a pale woman with auburn hair shorn close along the sides of her skull. He almost bit his lip bloody when she moved his tunic aside.

_“Well?!”_

The tasker jerked, Oscar too. The overseer was standing at the top of the stairs on the other side of the sitting room, broad face red and furious. “You!” he bellowed, pointing at Oscar. “What are you doing, boy? Get upstairs!”

Oscar’s breath caught. He barely felt where the tasker’s fingers had stilled. “I-, I thought-.”

 _“Upstairs!”_ the overseer shouted, so loud that spittle flecked from his lips in the lamp light. “Upstairs this instant, you idiot!” He began to stomp away, but turned again to snarl, “And good goddess, get _dressed!”_

\-----

The overseer wasn't there when Oscar got back upstairs, again in the black blouse and trousers of the dining room. He still smelled like lavender, and would for days, but he didn’t look anything like a whore anymore. Not even a little. His ears weren’t pegged, he had something far more substantial than cotton slippers on his feet, and a chance draft wouldn’t expose his thighs to any and all waiting to see. If was always a relief to be covered. To be more a person than he was usually allowed.

Adrian just tisked and shook his head. “Look at you,” he sighed, smiling still, but in a parentaly disappointed sort of way.  “Washed and readied, just to turn meat.”

Oscar lowered his eyes, and told himself he didn’t need to feel ashamed.

“Well, you know what you’re about,” Adrian said, gesturing away towards the dining room so that his rings shined in the light of the candelabras. The scrubs had already been through here again, little as there was to do. Sometimes it seemed as if the overseer could conjure dust just by looking. “Whole menu tonight, send Wilheim out for whatever’s needed. Cut the portions come evening if stores start getting low, but don’t let the soldiers see.”

“Yes sir.” He shouldn’t have felt so excited. Oscar kept his eyes low and his hands folded, but still almost smiled. Didn’t know why. This-, it wasn’t really that special. Oscar cooked nearly every day. Eggs and ham hash for the overseers and the rest, a mug of cinnamon porridge for the master, cold sandwich fixings for the taskers’ luncheon, and sometimes the rare supper for a patron that wanted a roasted hen done proper. This was nothing. Just a day of hard work. Of a different sort of work than he usually had to attend.

But still.

Still Oscar had to bite the inside of his cheek against that forbidden smile.

Adrian drifted near, until the polished tops of his boots were in Oscar’s sight. He clicked his tongue against his teeth then and tapped Oscar in the center of his chest. “Don’t you get comfortable on your feet, jade.” He pressed there, hard. As if readying a nail to strike with a hammer. “We both know this isn’t where you belong.”

Oscar told himself that wasn’t true, in a quiet voice that never felt steady, but still dipped his head and said, “Yes sir.”

“So _meek,”_ Adrian complained loudly, shooing Oscar away with a flap of his jeweled hand. “No fun whatsoever. It’s an honest wonder you have any regulars at all.” His polished boots clicked away, a quiet tattoo that echoed around the dining room. “Like I said, send lil’ Wil if you need anything more, and keep the grills hot until two bells tomorrow.”

A long day. Oscar would be exhausted the next morning. His feet would hurt and his head would ache and he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep it off, or find his bed early the next day. He’d be worked just as he always was every morning and night. Chores and taskers and appointments, just like every day since he’d been released from the basement years ago.

But he wouldn’t be touched, not for a whole day. That was enough.

That had to be enough.

\-----

Jewel Street Kitchens grew flooded with soldiers at some point between fourth bell and fifth. They were rugged and road stained, as if just moments from their march. Men with weeks’ worth of beard and women that hadn't waxed in just as long. Their hair one and all was longer than what the Royal Guard wore, and many hadn't taken the time to be washed from the sweat of the road. The scent of horse flesh and leather hung heavy in the air.

Oscar had smelled like that once. Years ago, when the only sort of stirrups he'd known of were those that came from a horse’s saddle.

The soldiers were as hungry as a horde of bears come spring. Oscar’d spent all afternoon making ready, steeping and baking and slicing as much as he had bowls to hold after the butcher’s girl finally showed face, but even most of that was devoured by the start of supper time. The grills sizzled away beneath stew and drums of chicken, beneath lamb and pork racks and a rare slab of steak for those with the after-march urge to waste all the coin in their purse. Most didn’t linger after their meals, not longer than it took to swig another ale and pay their tab before heading downstairs. Only a few recognized Oscar, disguised as he was in the drab colors of the dining room. They touched him, he knew they would, but didn’t grow angry when he pulled away. Not many of them, at least. Most were content with pinching him as he carried past another patron’s dinner, or laughed when a sneaking hand would nearly make him upset a tray.

They were kind in the manner of those full of food and drink, and a little stupid in just the same way. One soldier called her neighbor a shaved mule and a moment later they were both determined to beat the other bloody against the floorboards. Their fellows pulled them apart after a moment, but only after a man’s ale was knocked askew. Even with such a crowd Oscar only had to call for the taskers twice. Once when a drunken knight just couldn’t understand that he wasn’t working the floor that day, and again when a brawl broke out over a cheated hand of flash. The crowd was loud and brash, as sudden in temper and forgiving of one another as only soldiers were. Oscar almost felt at home again among them.

As if it were all a world he’d never left.

“Another, and another then after!” cried a bearded man the size of a barn door. He wore no uniform, but was jolly enough in his drink that Oscar only grew a little nervous on the other side of the bar.

“I’ll bring them around,” he promised, quick to retreat to the tap when the man turned away to shout at his fellows. The summer ale had run out an hour ago, but no one gave complaint when Oscar’d begun to serve the barrels of fifth-watered reserve.  The overseer had already sent lil’ Wil out to the brewery, but he hardly kept better attention to the time than the butcher’s girl.

The giant retreated with that same jolly cheer when Oscar passed over two flagons, his gap at the bar soon filled by half a dozen hungry soldiers that bore the badge of an archer brigade. Oscar didn't recognize the emblem inside, but that wasn't so rare these days.

Soon made content enough with bread and drinks, the archers left him alone to tend to the crocks of stew coming along on the back range. They wouldn't have time to simmer properly, not with the ever-flowing horde of hungry mouths that came through the door. Oscar wouldn't be allowed to let the broth come together the way a good stew needed. The overseer liked to say that the soldiers had coarse tongues and couldn't tell a fine dish from a decent one. Even so, Oscar set the best of the crocks on the back burner and gave it another stir. Steam bathed his forehead and fogged his sight, but the stew was nearly thick enough. Another ten minutes, maybe twenty, and-.

“My word!” a man hailed behind him, sudden and a bit jarring, “what is that smell?”

Oscar turned enough to see a redheaded knight over his shoulder. One as bearded and traveled-stained as the rest. “This-.”

“Let me see,” the knight called, gesturing with a broad sweep of his hand. “That smell, what is it?”

The front crock of stew wasn't warm enough to serve yet, but Oscar took a ladle-full and carried it to the bar over his apron. “Beef a-and barely, my-.”

“Yes!” the knight cried, as he leaned forward on the spokes of his stool. His hand was a sudden shackle around Oscar’s wrist. “Goddess, that smell! Hold still, now-.” Oscar couldn’t quite quit the insistence of his hand to flinch, or even get a word out to call a tasker before the knight had let him go. “That, I want that!” the man proclaimed, licking his lips once before flashing a bright smile. “It’ll be ready soon?”

“A-aye, of course.” Oscar retreated with the empty ladle and gave the coals beneath the range another stir. It didn’t settle his nerves. Little ever did. “Anything else?”

The knight rested against the bar on his elbows and stared up at the chalked menu above. It was all written in the master’s hand; crisp and orderly. No one in the Kitchens could write half so fine, though most never had much opportunity to try. “Brisket,” the knight muttered, scratching at a whiskered cheek. “You know I met the man they named that after?”

Oscar paused as he bent over to take a tray of roasted hens from the oven. “Brisket,” he repeated, just to be sure. “You mean the meat?”

“What else would I mean!” the knight barked. He smiled though, so Oscar didn’t quite know if he was upset. “It was just a side of beef, you see, until a fellow from away east -past even that pit of sand trying to swallow Daein- moved to the empire and started trade as a butcher. You’ve never seen such a butcher,” he insisted, beating the bar once with his first, as if Oscar had scoffed. “He could have the hide off a cow in three minutes, and the meat on the range in two more!”

That…that just wasn’t possible, but Oscar wasn’t foolish enough to say so. “I’ve never met such a butcher,” he said instead.

“I should say!” the knight laughed, striking the bar once more. “Never had a roast so fine, believe you me.”

“Is that what you’d like?” Oscar tried, daring to glance back over his shoulder to tell the knight’s mood. He was still smiling through his burgundy whiskers. Rarely did one ever see a Crimean knight with a beard so haphazard, but there couldn’t have been much opportunity to groom on the march. Even for an officer. “Roast and some stew?”

“And some cider,” the knight decided, staring once more at the menu. “The spiced kind, if you please.”

Oscar barely got a glass of the third shelf cider poured before a dozen soldiers rushed the bar. They gave the knight something of a berth, but were as loud and demanding as only a drunk might be in front of a royal officer. They all wanted a dozen things, only half of which Oscar had on hand. He tore bread and poured wine and sent away platters of sliced meats and olives and cheese. He barely managed to hand off the knight’s stew before three hails for ale echoed across the room.  

There were at least four taskers spread around the dining area, but none of them thought on Oscar fondly enough to lend a hand. Sometimes he thought it’d be nice to have someone that did. Someone that-, that maybe would step in when things got too much downstairs, that had enough weight to keep whores and taskers alike from touching at him when all he wanted to do was put his face to the wall and sleep the world away.

But that wasn’t the way things went for Oscar. Not in life, and certainly not at Jewel Street Kitchens.

He apologized to the knight again and waded out from the bar with two flagons to each hand. Oscar was just past the first row of tables when a soldier hooked his apron and tugged him near enough to see where the rain had washed the dirt and sweat from his dark hair. A ring of filth circled his throat and smudged the skin beneath his ears. “One of those mine, sweet pea?”

“Course,” Oscar decided, quick to set a flagon aside. The soldier smiled at him with blackened teeth and offered to let him take a bit of a break on his knees.

It took a moment, and the distraction of a falling drunk, before Oscar was able to slip away and deliver the remaining ale. He could yet feel where the soldier had put a hand between his legs, but that wasn’t so strange.

The redhead was still at the bar when he finally returned, the back of him more defined than Oscar had realized. He was certainly a knight, but maybe one that actually knew the meaning of a full day’s labor. “Be just a moment,” Oscar said as he came around, wiping his hands hurriedly on his apron. He couldn’t count the times this evening that they’d been doused in ale from the ruckus of the soldiers. “Did you want some more cider, or-.”

“Jade!” Oscar’s gut went a bit tight and sour as two women he barely recognized took stools to the knight’s left. One stood up on the bottom rail and reached across the bar, fingers splayed wide. “Lookit you, jade! Come over here!” She got a hand in Oscar’s sleeve and tried to tug him close. She was soused, her friend too, and the both of them laughed like they'd never seen a thing so funny when Oscar skidded in the grease drippings on the floor.

He caught himself on the counter top, but was too close to duck away when one of them got a hand in his hair and tipped his head back. “Sweetheart,” the soldier cooed, even while her fingers gripped achingly tight. “Don’t break yourself before we get a chance to.”

A moment was all Oscar would have needed to summon a tasker; a second to take a breath past his thrumming heart and another to call out. Just a moment, but it took less than one for the knight to kick out sideways and upset both the soldiers’ stools enough that they cussed and stumbled to the floor. “Behave yourself!” he snapped, an explosion of volume that nearly quieted the dining room. “You’ll not be pawing at civilians like unleashed hounds!”

The soldiers looked tempered enough to tip the knight off his own stool by the time they regained their feet. But then maybe they saw the knight’s crest, or knew him to be a lord, and as one found some sense. “Sir,” they slurred with a salute, not that they should have uncovered and indoors, before they stumbled away towards the staircase.

The knight shook his head and downed the rest of his cider in a gulp. “You’ll forgive them,” he said, after cleaning his whiskers with a napkin. “Keep a soldier from the city long enough and they won’t recognize a tavern from a bawdy house.”

Oscar waited, but the knight didn’t wink or give the joke away with a laugh. He seemed the sort that would. “…Of course.” His could still feel the heavy beat of his heart, that and the shallow pull of his lungs, but his nerves would fade. They always did. “I-, um, thank you,” he managed, soft and rather unsteady. He said the same words all the time, when a patron was finished or when a tasker was done making him ready, but only ever because it was an expectation. It wasn’t often that-, no one ever…

It was just nice to be treated so. As if he really were just a civilian, and this wasn’t the ground floor of a bawdy house.

If the knight though him bashful or strange, he made no mention. A wave of his broad hand, the matter brushed aside, and the knight leaned back and smiled so charmingly that Oscar nearly smiled back. “I’ve never been out with the men after a maneuver,” he said, glancing aside at the guffawing soldiers gathered at the other end of the bar. “I hope they aren’t always so bold?”

“…Not usually.” Lying wasn’t so uncommon, but Oscar almost felt guilty. He lied every day, and to every patron, but this man wasn’t anything the same. It wasn’t often that anyone talked to Oscar like this. Neither would this knight if he knew what Oscar actually was. But for right now, if only for right now, Oscar wasn’t a whore. He was just a man. Just a _civilian,_ and as utterly plain as both described. And if Oscar were true, if he told the knight that the behavior of those soldiers was almost tame, he wouldn’t talk to Oscar the way he did now. He would be startled, he might begin to wonder, and then…

And then Oscar wouldn’t be quite so plain anymore. 

“Good,” the knight decided, before pushing forward his bowl. “Another stew, won’t you? And whatever that was you put in the oven an hour ago.”

Had it already been so long? “I would,” Oscar said, rather cautiously as he took the bowl. His fingers began to tremble, as they always did when he had to disappoint another, patron or otherwise. “But the ribs, they-, well, they won’t be quite done y-yet?” The knight leaned forward, and Oscar nearly slipped in the grease so quick as he was to move away. “But-, but th-that’s fine, I-.”

“How long?” The knight didn’t look angry, or even annoyed. He was resting on his elbows, his head cocked to the side.

Oscar’s nerves had already come alive again and didn’t abate even the slightest while he spooned out what remained of the last crock of stew. “Ha-half an hour.”

“Is that all!” the knight cried, laughing the way a lion might roar. He sat back again and beat his knee, flashing Oscar once more with that brilliant smile. “Half a mark! I’d wait far longer for a decent rack!” He then began a story about a club on the other side of Melior, the sort of place that Oscar would never be allowed inside, and claimed he’d waited from dawn to dusk for the first pick of buffalo ribs. “Dry as a bone and under spiced,” he said at the end, glaring briefly at the eastern wall as if the club could feel his ire from here, “but I will never forget that sauce. I took a pitcher of it home and had the galley smother my ham every morning until it was gone.”

He sighed happily, and then made a sound of such stark satisfaction after having a bite of stew that Oscar began to flush. “That one’s been simmering the longest,” he said, almost pridefully. “There’s no more, though.”

“No more today,” the knight corrected, with a wink. “Tomorrow is a different story.”

Oscar was saved from disappointing him when a flood of soldiers entered the dining room. It was easy to tell that they’d already been downstairs. Most hadn’t bothered to redo their belt or make their hair less a mess. Serving them ended both the bread and the last of the fifth-watered reserve. Lil’ Wil still hadn’t come back, but there wasn’t a moment to tell a tasker. Nor did Oscar much want to. Until someone complained about the forth-watered there wasn’t much point to.

The knight disappeared at some point, but was returned the next time Oscar turned his head. He shook his empty cider glass and waited with a patience that the Kitchens rarely saw until there was no one else left to demand Oscar’s attention. It was something like a pleasure to watch his face light up the way it did when Oscar finally passed him a plate of ribs. “Why haven’t you any help?”

“I-, I’m alright,” Oscar assured, even though he wasn’t. There was a mound of unwashed dishes in back that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave for the scrubs and every time he caught his breath the headache simmering behind his eyes flared again to life. His shoulder ached no less that it had since waking, a sharp grating pain that flared every time he lifted something heavier than a tray.  There was nothing for it, nothing to do but keep working until the night came to an end. “It’s hard work in the kitchen, and not everyone’s up for that.”

“It’s a shame,” the knight told him with a scowl. “No one knows the value of real labor anymore. I met a farmer once, three hills over from the Windfall Woods. I’m sure you’ve been there-.” Oscar had actually, years ago. When he’d only been brother to one and more concerned with chasing beetles in the dirt than wondering how much more coin he need beg for father’s blessings. “-windmills everywhere, too many you know, and this farmer, she hails me on the way through the midst of them all. I come alongside her, to see what need she had of a kingsman.” He paused only to take another slurp of stew, and after wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Perhaps he’d forgotten his napkin. “She tells me bandits came through and stole her younger brother’s dowry. Said that they escaped on horseback, but the sack split and the dowry spilled out on the ground. She went to collect it all, jewels apparently, but a storm forced her inside and covered everything with dirt and mud.”

He muttered something too mangled to hear through another spoonful of stew, but his mood was clear enough to tell. “…Did she want you to hunt them down?” Oscar asked as he took up a rag. The backbar wasn’t all that dirty, but more than once now he’d caught a tasker glancing his way. It was always best to look busy.

“Wanted my help digging up the jewels, if you can believe it,” the knight grumbled. “Said that her brother’s betrothal depended on it and convinced me to hitch a plow to turn the dirt as she sifted through, claiming her horse had just that morning cast a shoe.”

“And you did?” A knight’s horse had no business pulling a plow. They weren’t built for that sort of work, especially when battle dress and farm equipment strained the withers differently.

Maybe the knight didn’t know that.

“I did,” he grumbled. He then tore a bit of meat free from the bone with an aggressive jerk and talked through chewing. “Had a bruise from here down afterwards,” he gestured from his collar bone to the bottom of his chest, “bad enough that the barracks healer was convinced I’d been taken captive on the border and tortured.”

Oscar paused his rag, brows together. “You were bruised? From what?”

“From the plow, man! Weren’t you listening?” He huffed and crossed his arms, plate barren of anything but bone. “Couldn’t hook that blasted contraption to my steed. Don’t you know a thing about Silvinian horseflesh?”

He did, not that the knowledge did Oscar much good as he was. “You pulled it yourself?” he asked, just to be sure. His brows were high, his rag still paused, all unintentional, but Oscar couldn’t help it. Who’d ever heard of such a thing? Of a royal officer himself hitching a plow? “Did you ever find the jewels?”

“Bah!” the knight barked, motioning for another round of ribs. “There were no jewels, no brother, no dowry! Just a scheming farm hand getting out of hard work. In the end I’d nearly plowed half the field! The gall of her!”

Oscar bit his lip against another smile. It was getting harder to keep himself in check. It would do nothing well for him if Adrian or one of the taskers saw him enjoying himself in the dining room. “I can’t think she meant to upset you-.”

“Don’t you dare,” the knight snapped, without a smile but also without beating the bar. “Don’t you excuse those sort of folk. Lazy and conniving, three thieves to every dozen.”

Oh, well…there was only one sort of folk the knight could mean. Politics weren’t something that Oscar really had a head for. He’d seen beastmen of course, even serviced one once, but didn’t know what he was supposed to think about them. Each client had their own way of thinking and trying to keep up usually just ended with Oscar getting hit. “Was she a-, um-.”

“Laguz?” the knight said, before waving the word away. It was strange for an officer to speak so much with his hands, but maybe he was just tired. “No no no, just some backwater Crimean that didn’t know how to care for her animals. You’d not believe the state of her mare.” He called the horse a poor dear under his breath and took a noisy gulp of stew. “I’d have taken the creature home and found her a better lot, but I had no coin and nothing to barter with.”

“Kind of you,” Oscar told him, with a sincerity he rarely felt. “I’m sure she’s taken better care of her since.” He’d of said more, but a heavy knock on the wall behind him had Oscar turning.

The overseer was staring at him through the window to the back. He beckoned with a curled finger and stalked from sight.

Oscar put his rag aside and willed away the sour uncertainty buzzing beneath his skin. He’d barely begun to turn when the knight reached out and caught his apron strings, “Hold on! Where are you off to?”

Oscar opened his mouth, unsure what to say, but the knight just smiled and asked if he'd be back. “I-, yes, I’ll just be a few-.”

The knight waved him away, already tucked back into his ribs.

The other side of the kitchen was never busy, not even on nights like this. There was no reason to keep staff here, so said the overseer, when they were worth far more on their backs a floor below. Usually Oscar didn’t mind, but it was hard to enjoy the rare solitude when he had too many things to do and too few hands to do them. “Sir?” he asked, careful to keep from wringing his nervous hands. Though clenching them in his apron was hardly better.

The overseer looked at him and flung a dirty platter into the overflowing sink. “How many times must I tell you, boy? Get rid of that squint!”

Oscar’s eyes flinched wider of their own accord when the overseer then snapped a finger in his face.

“Why is there not a single clean tankard in this building?” the overseer continued, hissing though his clenched teeth. Sweat clung high on his forehead and had dampened his collar. No wonder when he always wore such heavy cloaks no matter the temperature or time.

“I was heading back directly,” Oscar promised as his hands began to tremble, even though the matter hadn’t occurred to him since twelfth bell. “If you’d like-.”

 _“I would like a clean object from which to drink_!” the overseer bellowed, snarling in the way of a furious hound. _“_ I would like a single individual in this establishment to do as they are told! I would like to know why there is still no summer ale!” The headache behind Oscar’s painfully wide eyes spread the way ripples would a lake. He tried not to let it show. The overseer could be sympathetic in his own way, but never on such a night as this. Never when his fisted hands were crackling with a white-gold light that cast fearsome shadows on the floor. _“I would like to know where in the Goddess’ blessed name is Wilheim?!”_

“He’s been out since before fourth bell,” Oscar reported, refusing even to blink when the overseer turned back his way. There was something wrathful in his eyes. Something that made even the taskers put their heads down and hurry about their duties.  

“…Go,” the overseer growled, so dreadfully low that the hairs on Oscar’s arms lifted high. “See to the soldiers. Encourage them downstairs.”

Oscar did not wait to be told twice. Still unblinking, without yet taking a breath, he hurried to the dining room and willed his trembling fingers to become steady.

The knight hadn’t moved. He almost seemed a statue amidst the revelry all around. At least, until he glanced up and caught sight of Oscar pushing through the curtains. His brown eyes crinkled as he smiled, the flare of his beard and flash of his teeth again so charming that something strange and fluttery came alive in Oscar’s chest. “Took you long enough,” he chided, leaning forward on his elbows. “Here I thought you’d left me all alone.”

“Not on purpose,” Oscar assured. His voice caught some, and he saw the knight notice. There was a frown pulling down the edges of his mustache. Oscar didn’t think he could lie well if the knight asked anything difficult, and hurried to distract.  “Your plate’s clean, my lord, would you like anything else?”

The knight roared out a sudden laugh. “I am no lord,” he said, again as happy a man as Oscar had ever seen at two bells past twelve. “See this crest here, don't you know how to read them?”

Oscar did, and he read there a lord, but the knight didn’t give him a moment to speak.

Instead he spent the next twelve minutes explaining heraldry to Oscar in painfully precise detail, and another four detailing his own family line, naming every cousin that separated him from the lordship of House Erestor. He gestured at the house epaulet threaded onto his left breast all the while. “-and then myself! Though I've a number of cousins even further down the line. Aethis and Sether and Georgina and Eric -but he has a terrible temper, never give him red wine- and Ferguson and Beryle and-.”

“I will certainly say hello to all them if we meet,” Oscar cut in, though carefully. Still docilely. So that the knight wouldn't have reason to complain.

But the knight only smiled again with his strong teeth, “Kind of you, but perhaps not Eric? He isn't the most friendly even when sober.”

“Not Eric,” Oscar agreed. He had to bite his lip again.

“Exactly,” the knight said, with an approving look that made another strange flutter erupt in Oscar’s chest. “But you understand now?”

Heraldry, yes.

Why this knight had come all the way to Jewel Street just for dinner and a chat? Not at all.

But if he’d rather talk than touch, then who was Oscar to complain?  “So… you're within twelve inheritances.”

The knight opened his mouth, and then closed it with a frown. He lifted a hand -Oscar went quite still- but only counted five twice on one hand and then added one. Oscar counted along with him after his fright bled away, and couldn't help but grin when the knight cussed. “I suppose I am.” And then he looked down at his crest, really looked at it, and let out that lion's laugh when he noted the golden fretting around the border, “I really am!”

Oscar wasn't used to smiling this much. His cheeks hurt, and for no reason but humor.  “You still haven't answered my question.”

The knight glanced up under the unruly mop of his red bangs, “Hmm? Are you sure?”

It was strange, so much more than strange, to find himself on the cusp of laughter. Oscar almost couldn’t leash it. “Is there anything else you'd like, _my lord?”_

The knight grinned back at his cheek and ordered another plate of ribs.

He finally left at third bell, still sober. Still smiling. He hadn't said a word about the ribs, but hadn't quit ordering them until there were just no more to give. And even then he didn't become angry. He didn't strike Oscar or call him a useless whore, or threaten to rut him bloody with a rusted fork.

The knight just smiled with his dimpled cheeks and strong teeth, and left a little mountain of silver coins on the bar.

\-----

Oscar didn't go to sleep until all the grills were cleaned and greased, until every pot was scoured and each glass pegged. His hands weren’t quite steady anymore, his feet like lead. Even so late the lanterns on the porch were still lit as he finally began his last descent of the day.

He was tired, so beyond tired, but no one had really touched him all day.

Was it a fool’s wish, to wonder if tomorrow would be the same?


End file.
